Catastrophic Extinction of Intertidal Macrobenthic Communities

초록

The construction of Sihwa dike resulted in the alteration of physical habitat and therefore the deterioration of water quality as well as the mass mortality of intertidal macrobenthos. The snap-shot study of macrobenthos distribution was carried out in the Sihwa lake in November, 2000. A series of cluster analysis based on the distribution patterns of benthic community between intertidal benthic communities inside and outside Sihwa dike showed that the intertidal macrobenthic community originally established inside the Sihwa lake lost the native feature of intertidal communities. As a matter of fact, the reduction of tidal elevation from the dike construction and the artificial watergate control was a main cause of the habitat destruction and so the extinction of the intertidal macrobenthic communities in the lake inside the Sihwa dike.